


when the hand you wanna hold is a weapon (and you’re nothing but skin)

by JustGail



Series: home is in your arms [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Bottom Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Character Development, Crying During Sex, First Time, Getting Together, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, Love Confessions, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Power Imbalance, Sex, Sharing a Bed, Top Jaskier | Dandelion, Unhealthy Relationships, a lot of this is implied rather than stated outright, this really toes the line between mature and explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:46:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27746191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustGail/pseuds/JustGail
Summary: “But, as a kid,” Jaskier says, “you must have dreamed of beingsomething.”“I was raised with a sword in my hand,” Geralt answers. “There’s nothing else.”
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: home is in your arms [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2194563
Comments: 16
Kudos: 234





	when the hand you wanna hold is a weapon (and you’re nothing but skin)

**Author's Note:**

> I was relistening to Manic by Halsey and the line that is now the title from Graveyard really hit hard. So even though I'm still working on folklore _and_ the gym au, I just had to write this.  
> A lot of fics ignore this - including my own previous work - but Geralt and Jaskier's relationship has an inherent power imbalance. The age difference is a big factor in this. The fact that Geralt refuses to acknowledge their friendship is a very toxic mentality. From these thoughts, a series a vignettes came to me, and that's what this fic is. Geralt and Jaskier's power imbalance becoming a healthier relationship.  
> I decided to mark this as mature because even though there's a _lot_ of sex in this, none of it goes into detail. It's meant, more than anything else, to showcase the way their relationship develops, rather than actually be particularly hot. Smut is great, don't get me wrong. But that's not what this fic is about.  
> I don't have any idea why this is in present tense. I basically never write in present tense. Yet, here's twenty-three-hundred-and-some words of present tense.  
> I hope you enjoy,  
> JustGail

(He doesn’t realize it yet, but he’s so young, when they meet. So, so young.

Eventually, as he makes his way down from where his heart shattered, he will. But right now, all he knows is the infinity in his chest; the wideness of the world; the wilderness that beckons him.

And he attaches himself to this man so tight he can’t imagine ever letting go.)

“Geralt,” he whispers. “Are you awake?”

“Mm,” Geralt says from the other bed. So close, so far away.

“Do you ever think of the other selves we could be?” Jaskier asks, his rabbit heart pounding in his chest. “Who we might have been if we had been given different choices?”

“Go to sleep, Jaskier,” Geralt’s voice rumbles.

He does.

They’re sitting around a campfire, an already familiar routine guiding them through the evening. They’ll be up at dawn, as they always are. But right now they’re sitting in the rapidly chilling evening air as Jaskier mindlessly strums a few experimental chords on his lute.

“What kind of choices?” Geralt asks, seemingly out of nowhere.

Jaskier stops strumming. “Hmm?”

“You asked, last night. Who we might have been.”

“Oh, right.” Jaskier pauses to think. “I guess what I meant was – in a world where you weren’t a witcher. If I wasn’t a bard. Who would we be?”

Geralt snorts. “In what world would you be anything but a bard?”

 _If I didn’t need to escape_ , he thinks. _If I wasn’t choking on responsibility I never asked for._ “If I hadn’t been taught music, I suppose,” he says instead. Not a lie. Not the truth.

Geralt hums.

“I suppose I might have been an academic,” Jaskier muses. “I’m unreasonably good at it.”

“Why aren’t you, then,” Geralt not-quite-asks.

Jaskier shrugs. “The road calls to me,” he says. “Music is in my veins. Can’t get the itch out. It’s hard to be an academic if I can’t settle down in an academy.”

“That isn’t solved by lacking music,” Geralt points out. He throws a bundle of sticks into the fire.

“I suppose not,” Jaskier admits. “Maybe a traveling merchant, then. But what about you?”

Geralt doesn’t answer.

“Oh, come on,” Jaskier needles. “You’re the one who started this. You can’t back out now.”

Geralt huffs, but Jaskier is right, of course. “I don’t know,” he mutters. “I’ve never been anything else.”

“But, as a kid,” Jaskier says, “you must have dreamed of being _something_.”

“I was raised with a sword in my hand,” Geralt answers. “There’s nothing else.”

Jaskier kisses a man behind an inn’s stables in a town too small to have a name.

Jaskier laughs into a woman’s shoulder in Ard Carraigh as he thrusts into her.

Geralt visits a brothel as soon as they reach a town big enough to have one.

He can’t breathe. There’s blood pouring from his mouth like opened floodgates. He knows he’s going to die. He can’t breathe.

He wakes in a dark room. He’s not in Rinde. They left Rinde months ago. It was just a nightmare. He can just barely hear Geralt’s shallow breath, can feel his warmth next to him in the too-small bed.

At least he didn’t scream this time. Geralt gets so little sleep as it is.

“I’m not your friend,” Geralt says, then saves him from a harpy.

“We’re not friends,” Geralt says, as Jaskier draws him a bath.

“You’re not my friend,” Geralt insists, as Jaskier stitches his arm back together.

“You don’t get to decide that,” Jaskier tells him, and Geralt turns his face away.

It’s cold, even inside the inn. Geralt lets Jaskier cuddle up to him without complaint. Jaskier doesn’t remember when Geralt stopped insisting on getting separate beds. He doesn’t remember when Geralt started holding him at night. Jaskier just wishes Geralt would let himself feel the same in the light of day.

Geralt always comes back. No matter what he faces, no matter how difficult the hunt, he always comes back. Tonight is no exception. He came back. But Jaskier fears he won’t survive the night.

He keeps his mind on task. Golden Oriole, Kiss, stitches, wipe the blood away, call for a bath.

In the morning, when Geralt is still alive, Jaskier holds his head in his hands. Holds his gaze. Tells him: “You can’t leave me. I won’t let you.”

Geralt closes his eyes.

Geralt kisses him in the woods. Jaskier holds him so tight that any other man would bruise. Geralt’s thighs are unmarked in the morning.

Jaskier rocks into him, mouthing a silent love confession into Geralt’s collarbone. After, Jaskier wipes the tears off Geralt’s cheeks. In the dark, Geralt bares his soul to Jaskier.

“You were so young,” he tells Jaskier.

“I know,” Jaskier says, even though he doesn’t.

(Not yet.)

For a while, it’s only the once. Jaskier tries to convince himself that he can be content with that.

Geralt surprises him in Oxenfurt.

“The snow melted early,” he lies, but Jaskier lets him believe he doesn’t recognize the untruth. Jaskier is a master of lying, and he sympathizes with Geralt’s need for secrets. Some things are too big to speak. Some things take too much room in the heart.

Jaskier shows him around. Takes him to his favorite tavern. Drags him to an opera. Geralt grumbles the entire way there and back, but Jaskier can tell he enjoys it anyway. Buys him a new shirt.

At night, they explore each other’s bodies. Jaskier coaxes pleasure out of Geralt till he can’t breathe. Geralt pushes Jaskier onto the bed and keeps his mouth on him till Jaskier turns speechless. Geralt doesn’t cry again. Jaskier makes no love confessions. They fall asleep entangled.

They wake up on opposite sides of the bed.

“My classes end soon,” Jaskier says with forced nonchalance.

“Hmm,” Geralt responds. He pulls Jaskier on top of him and kisses him till Jaskier forgets anything he could possibly say.

And Geralt makes the sweetest sounds as he lets Jaskier pry him open. Jaskier wishes they could stay in this bed in an endless night for the rest of time; he wishes he could freeze this moment, keep Geralt writhing below him and kiss all his troubles away. All he can do is chase his pleasure, _Geralt’s_ pleasure, do his best to make sure that Geralt could never, ever forget what it was like to be loved by Jaskier, even if Geralt could never love him back.

The night before they’re due to leave, Jaskier cleans up the mess. By the time he makes his way back to the bed, Geralt is deep asleep. Before he can chicken out, he whispers it – just to tell him, just to hear it, just the once. “I love you,” he confesses, his deepest secret, his darkest truth.

He vows to never say it again. Then he crawls into the bed, holds onto Geralt tight.

In the morning, Geralt is nowhere to be found.

They meet. They travel together. They part. Years pass.

On a mountain, Jaskier offers the coast.

On a mountain, Geralt chooses Yennefer.

On a mountain, Geralt breaks his heart.

It’s a cold winter, colder than most. Still, Cintra’s fires burn.

Jaskier knows better than to hope.

(He hopes anyway.)

He still relives Rinde in his dreams. Has for a decade. But now Rinde is joined by images of Geralt’s melted flesh. Now he confesses his love to a corpse. Now he chokes on the hope that grows in his chest, that won’t leave, that ruined him, ruined him, ruined him.

Whenever the fires no longer burn, Nilfgaard’s soldiers light them again.

He’s performing in a tavern as the wind howls outside. It’s as if the heat of Cintra burning delayed winter. He can’t remember the last time it was still raining this heavily this late in the year. But he must make a living, and he nearly overstayed his welcome in Oxenfurt.

A girl runs into the tavern. She’s dirty, but not so filthy that Jaskier doesn’t recognize Pavetta’s features, that he doesn’t spot the blonde locks, that he doesn’t immediately pack his lute away as she says her companion needs help. He introduces himself, and he supposes she must have heard of his travels with Geralt, because her eyes light up with recognition.

“He’s sick,” she says. “I don’t know how to help him.”

“Show me,” he says. “I do.”

Geralt looks… bad. Really bad. Jaskier thinks at first he must be dreaming. He looks so much like the mangled corpses of his nightmares.

(He holds his breath.

It hurts.

He’s awake.)

“Where’s his potions bag.”

The girl gives it to him wordlessly. It’s nearly empty. A bottle of Kiss sits at the bottom, only half full. It’ll have to do.

Now there’s nothing to do but wait.

“Jaskier,” Geralt says.

“Geralt,” Jaskier says.

There’s no corpse. He doesn’t tell him he loves him.

“We’re on our way to Kaer Morhen,” Ciri tells him, later.

Jaskier nods. “That makes sense.”

“Are you coming with us?” she asks eagerly.

Jaskier shoots a glance ahead at Geralt, sitting on Roach. Jaskier and Ciri are sharing a horse Jaskier named Pegasus. They’re making a slow but steady pace. “I don’t think so,” he tells her.

Geralt doesn’t look back at them, and Jaskier is almost glad of it.

They’re sitting at a campfire again. Ciri has her own tent, and she’s long gone to sleep in it. Jaskier and Geralt both still have nothing but their bedrolls, but that’s okay. It feels almost like the good old days.

Jaskier chooses to remember them as good, despite everything.

“You’re taking the long way ‘round,” Jaskier accuses, softly, so as to not wake Ciri. She sleeps almost as little as Geralt does. Has worse nightmares.

Geralt sighs. Closes his eyes. “Yes,” he admits.

“Why,” Jaskier says, still softly.

“You’re not coming with us,” he says. “To Kaer Morhen.”

Jaskier’s heart pounds in between his ears. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m not ready to let you go,” Geralt whispers. He opens his eyes, captures Jaskier’s in return.

Jaskier doesn’t even know why he’s stuck around these past months. He’s had no reason to. He’s had no excuse. Geralt hadn’t even apologized.

He’d thought it was for Ciri.

He’d been lying to himself.

“That’s not fair,” Jaskier says thickly.

“I know it’s not,” Geralt says. “I don’t know how to fix it.”

Now it’s Jaskier’s turn to close his eyes. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

It’s quiet for a very long time.

They go to sleep.

Jaskier wakes to find that his hand and Geralt’s are almost touching.

They’re at an inn. Geralt has just gotten a rather large payment for a contract; Jaskier gets particularly good tips from his performance at the local tavern. They decide they can afford to get two rooms, for once.

Ciri gets her own room.

Geralt and Jaskier share.

It’s hardly the first time they’ve shared a room, or a bed. It’s not even the first time they’ve shared since they met five months ago. But it’s the first time they’ve been alone in such a room in a very long time.

Jaskier can tell that Geralt is fretting over Ciri being by herself. He sighs, pats the spot next to him on the bed. “She’ll be fine,” he assures him. “She’s just on the other side of that wall. You can probably hear her breathing, right?”

Geralt sits stiffly on the bed and nods once.

“Then you have nothing to worry about. If anything happens, you’ll stop it. Now relax. We should go to sleep.”

Jaskier blows out the candle and makes himself as comfortable as possible under the scratchy sheets.

He’s just about to fall asleep when Geralt suddenly says, “I’m sorry.”

Jaskier almost hits his head as he turns to face Geralt. In the moonlight coming through the window, he can just barely make out Geralt’s outline. He knows that with Geralt’s eyesight, he can probably see every detail of his expression. “What,” he says slowly, “the fuck.”

“I’m sorry,” Geralt repeats, as if it wasn’t the gods-damn most unexpected thing Geralt could have possibly said.

“What the fuck are you sorry for?”

“Everything,” Geralt says. He doesn’t elaborate.

“I hate you,” Jaskier says. “That isn’t enough.”

Geralt shudders as he breathes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for – I’m sorry for what I said to you on that mountain. I’m sorry for treating you like shit for years. I’m sorry for never letting you be my friend. I’m sorry…” He hesitates.

Jaskier says nothing. He doesn’t know what to say. There’s too much.

“I’m sorry for leaving,” Geralt says, so quietly Jaskier almost thinks he’s imagining it, “after that night in Oxenfurt. I’m sorry I let you wake up without me.”

“You heard me,” Jaskier realized. “Shit. I’m – “

“Don’t – “ Geralt sighed. “Can I just – can I just finish?”

Jaskier nods once. His lungs are in his throat. His insides are all wrong.

“I did,” Geralt continues. “I did hear you. And I panicked. I _couldn’t_. I couldn’t let you love me. All I can do – I destroy everything I touch, Jask,” he begs, “I didn’t want to destroy you.”

“You did anyway,” Jaskier whispers.

“I know,” Geralt says. “And I have never regretted anything more. But – you terrify me, Jask. Like nothing has ever terrified me. I can face any creature, any monster in the world. I can live with all my mistakes. But you – you’re my ruination.”

Jaskier is crying. When did he start crying?

“You terrify me,” Geralt repeated. “And I have never wanted anything more.”

“I love you,” Jaskier tells him, choking on his tears.

“I know,” Geralt says. “Please forgive me.”

He does.

And later, as they’re lying in their own sticky mess, too exhausted to move, Geralt whispers in Jaskier’s ear: “Come to Kaer Morhen with us.”

Jaskier agrees.

When he wakes in the morning, Geralt is holding him.

**Author's Note:**

> so originally I had no end notes but nearly 600 hits and like eight re-reads of my own fic later I decided that the last part owes too much to suzukiblu's [if you understand](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1850263) soulmate au to not at least mention it. it's a fantastic fic I've read at least three times and it deserves your love. it's not really inspired by it - this fic absolutely does its own thing - but some of the lines here read to me like they could've come straight out of _can you help me unravel my latest mistake_ , so I figured I'd mention it.  
> also, I guess as long as we're here, thank you for reading. I'd appreciate a kudos and a comment, that would be cool.  
> love,  
> JustGail


End file.
